Lessons in Cooking
by Snowyheart
Summary: Sanzo, Hakkai, Goku, and a kitchen. [38]


(Written for chaosd's request for gen-ish kawaii 398--I'm afraid the gen escaped me entirely, and I shall have to try again sometime soon. (laughs) In any case, I do hope you enjoy this.

Someone(s) somewhere already used the cooking theme in their fic--I can't remember who it was at all now, so please forgive me, whoever you are, for ripping you off, hee.)

* * *

That winter evening had been a cold one, in more ways than one. The elevation in this particular part of the journey was high; air was thin, and so were temperatures. They had given up when washes of snow dust began to creep under Jeep's tires, beneath folds of clothing, and against shivering skin. 

Something was wrong, that much Gojyo could see, looking out from above his spoonful of soup. Some kind of unspoken snarl in usually smooth thread, some weird hint of wrong. He watched it alertly, if a little bored at the same time; as if he was watching the same tennis match he'd seen over and over again. When the monkey finished eating, he busied himself with teasing, because even the poor kid would pick it up at some point--and even he was getting a headache. By the end of the night, from either kindness or plain amusement, he dumped Goku into his own room and made sure that the other two had to share. It was a bad sign that he was even able to outmaneuver Hakkai.

That morning found a tentative sunrise brushing the snowy hills, and found Hakkai less tentatively established in the kitchen.

Goku found it as a Very Good Sign.

"Hey! You gonna cook something?" He had the air of someone who didn't often have this luxury: knowing the quality of his cook. Despite himself, Hakkai smiled a little more genuinely.

"I was thinking I might."

Perhaps attracted by the voices in the kitchen, a holy monk slid in without a word, established himself in a chair by the oven, and unfolded his fortress: the week-old newspaper. Someone might say that he was just there to warm his stiff back against the oven's side; someone else entirely might note that the oven hadn't even been on yet that morning, and was likely to be as cold as the rest of the inn.

"So what're you gonna make? I wonder what ingredients they got," said Goku, clearly imagining a feast of succulent meats, delicate pastries, robust--

"Bread, actually."

"...um,"

"Ahaha, Goku, don't look so disappointed. Homemade bread is actually very good."

"Oh. Okay." It was hard to imagine why the location in which bread was made would change its taste, but he was willing to try. Food was food.

"I'd like you to help, if you would," said the chef, gamely involving his audience and deftly ignoring the newspaper in the corner.

Some banging of cabinets later, and the ingredients and implements were lined up on the counter, ready for use.

"Now Goku," for some reason, Hakkai's voice was loud enough to carry all the way across the room, "one must be careful and delicate when measuring the ingredients. Bread in this stage is rather too volatile to allow for unnecessary roughness." He poured the ingredients himself, careful and precise, allowing Goku to hand him what was needed.

"Now stir," he said over the loud turning of newspaper pages, "but it's not as necessary to be careful at this point. You know it has been stirred enough when it becomes easy to handle."

Goku stirred diligently, caught somewhere between what he hoped was too-careful and not-careful-enough.

"Good," smiled the cook, turning the dough onto a floured board, "now sometimes it needs you to be rough with it." The newspaper rustled. "This is one of those times."

"All right! Should I summon--?"

"No! Aha, no, please don't summon Nyoi-Bou in the kitchen. Your hands will be just fine."

After Hakkai demonstrated the proper way to knead dough without the use of a deadly weapon, Goku used his expert skills at beating inanimate things, and the kneading was done faster than anyone expected.

"Done! What's next?"

"Next it's... well, imagine the bread as sometimes feeling very angry; this is when we put it into the tray and let it be alone, but still cover it and put it in a safe place. At the end, it will have grown, you see?"

"Is it gonna take a while?"

"Well, yes-sometimes, patience is required."

The next hour went by slowly but leisurely. Goku took the opportunity to stretch his legs, gather a handful of snow, and stuff it up his no-longer-sleeping roommate's shirt. It just so happened that it took Hakkai the entire hour to clean the counters and put away the ingredients, and Sanzo must have found one or two incredibly interesting articles there in the middle of the paper.

Once Goku wandered back, Hakkai revealed the mound of grown bread with a smile. With his questions of _are we really making enough_ satisfyingly answered, Goku proudly set the pan into the oven.

"Wow-- I never knew that much work went into bread!"

"That's true; I'm certain it would want to be easier if it could, but... And then again," his voice was quieter now, but somehow carried farther, "some breads aren't even worth all that work. With some, it's a wonder why anyone tries at all."

The sound that came from the newspaper sounded something like "that's nonsense," but no one could know for certain.

When the timer finally dinged, and before Goku even had the chance to whip the door open, the newspaper was folded and left on the ground.

"I want some," announced the previously mostly-silent Sanzo, pinning the master chef with a more direct stare than he usually ever summoned in the mornings. It must be, of course, that he was merely very hungry.

"If you must," smiled Hakkai, serving him a still-steaming slice.

"You guys are funny," muttered Goku around his mouthful of bread as he tromped out of the room.

* * *

(I know bread involves many more steps than this, but the fic was getting drawn out enough; please pretend that this is special, Togenkyo bread!) 


End file.
